Mabon Tarot Blog Hop

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 Greetings and welcome to the Mabon Tarot Blog Hop!

Depending on which way you are reading around the Master List, you may have arrived from Andy Boroveshengra or in reverse from Aisling at TarotWitchery. I am so happy to welcome you to Wynn Tarot.

Mabon is the festival of the Autumn Equinox, occurring between Lammas (beginning of August) and Samhain (end of October) and celebrates Day and Night being of equal length. After which the nights grow long and we prepare for the coming of Winter.

Our wonderful wrangler for the Hop is Cristiana C Gaudet and the theme for this Mabon festival is Divination and Myth. As you can see by the tabs on this blog, I have a love of the Festivals and of myth and legend so am thrilled to be taking part in my very first Blog Hop.

I live in Kent in the South East of England, and the above photo shows the nearby Coldrum Longbarrow all shrouded in Autumnal mist. This 3000 year old chamber reminds me that the land on which I live contains a wealth of ancient memories and didn't just appear as 21st Century suburbia!

Where our home lies is slap bang in the middle of an area once shared (not always peacefully) by Jutes, Saxons and Celts. At one time our very garden was part of the land owned by a Saxon general and was covered in woodland of Beech and Oak before gently sloping down to the River Medway.

According to ancient texts (including the Lacnunga - an Anglo Saxon book of healing charms and remedies) dense woodland was both a help and a hindrance to the population. Wonderful for a ready source of timber for shelter and fuel, but problematic due to the Elves. Yes....Elves! 

These dwellers of the dark forests were thought to be the cause of certain illnesses, wild behaviour in humans and livestock as well as nightmares and addled minds. Many historians claim that the probable diseases were due to damp, mould and airborne germs ('elf-shots') - but these were superstitious folk who believed they were sharing the land with the Elves, and that offerings and respect were required. In my own family, whenever we grew fruit and vegetables we were told never to strip a plant bare, but to leave some fruit 'for the fairies' (....and I still do)

When relations between human and Elf were good, the people would be invited to one of the dance rituals the Elves loved. It wasn't unheard of for some Elves to emerge from the woods and come and live underneath a human home (apparently the tidier the better. No chance here then!) and there are many tales of love and marriage between the two. Elves would sometimes bestow a gift of an Elf Book, which showed various magical ways of divining the future.

 Our ancestors and their Elf neighbours needed to live in harmony with the wheel of the year, and moving from light to dark marked a shift in daily living. I have created a Tarot/Oracle spread to journey from this festival of Mabon towards the festival of Samhain at the end of October. I'd like to share it with you....and the Elves!

1 What I balance between the light and dark parts of myself

2 The energy I need for my journey to Samhain

3 The strength I didn't know I possessed

4 What I bring to the dance!

Wishing you bright blessing through this Mabon Blog Hop - I shall now venture into my rain-lashed garden with my offerings .......and sit....and listen....

'Til next time

Margo

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Photo of Coldrum Longbarrow by Margo Benson. Illustration 'Elves' by Arthur Rackham

Colouring my Day

Greetings!

Hmmm...this is a little difficult. In my last post, I was excited to be taking an introductory workshop in Aura Light Colour Essences, Oils and Creams. Now, as I was disappointed beyond measure, I was hesitant to write negatively. However, I told so many people what I was doing that, for integrity's sake, I am going ahead. As I have no wish to be associated in working with these products in any way, I feel I should explain why.

I have no problem with colour therapy. Colours can lift the mood, calm the mind and generally make us happy. I work with crystals and a huge part of their appeal are their beautiful colours. As you can see in the picture, the array presented in the Aura Light arsenal is glorious and I couldn't wait to start understanding how they worked. As well as myriad colours cleverly suspended like cocktails, the bottles house essential oils, flower remedies, crystal remedies and have been prepared with such additions as sound therapy and stellar frequencies (whatever that means!) My own therapies include aromatherapy, crystal healing and Bach Flower Remedies, so I thought this would be right up my street.

'So what's in them?' I asked

The friendly teacher repeated what I have just written and added that, once you have tuned into or been guided to a certain bottle, you inhale from the ones containing essences (ie Chakra essences) or rub on the colourful oil from the Harmony bottles as part of a massage or just on pulse points etc.

'Yes, but what essential oils are in them?' I asked

Repeat of blurb with the addition of saying that one will be given an ingredients list on Level 3 training. Now Level 1 is the first row of bottles in the picture - Level 2 the second row....and so on.

Any of you using essential oils for profession or pleasure know that the molecules within an oil are small enough to enter the blood stream - that is how aromatherapy works. So here I'm being encouraged to sniff a bottle because I'm drawn to particular shade and massage the contents onto skin without knowledge of the ingredients until I have parted with several hundreds of pounds. *Cue a frown*

In some areas of life, I find a heavy handed attitude to health and safety a bit much. But we're talking possible irritation and toxicity here! I carefully source the carrier and essential oils I use on myself and clients. I know where they are from, how they're produced and have batch numbers and use by dates. It's important....think pregnancy or nut allergy. If these bottles worked on the vibration of the colour alone (vegetable dye I was told) then why add oils and essences? - AND why keep them a secret?

With my chosen deep indigo bottle in my hand, the teacher told me that this one had been made with the influence of stellar frequency. I attempted another question:

'Ooh! Like a Full Moon or astrological event?'

Down came the shutters again while the teacher explained that she didn't know exactly how the products were made but just that they were produced under amazing conditions.

Yours truly was beginning to sound like a broken record with questions about the ingredients and wanting more than hints of such marvels without anything concrete. None was forthcoming so in the end I gave up and when the day was over I was more than a little fed up. I wasn't after a secret formula, I'm not about to set myself in competition with the company, but as a therapist, I cannot ask someone to inhale something just because it's a fetching shade of red.

Moving on ... I shall meditate on a card from Denise Linn's Gateway Oracle deck

'Til next time...

Margo